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Academe rides surfings big wave

AUSTRALIAN surfers have long been happy to expose their bronzed brawn, but coy about any display of brainpower. That may be about to change.

James Skinner, a sports management lecturer at Southern Cross University, near Surfers Paradise, Queensland, plans to launch a diploma in surfing.

He hopes enthusiasts from Australia and further afield will join his course, which is expected to start in July.

The university’s highest curriculum-setting body, the academic board, has yet to be persuaded, however, of the merit of studying the “culture” of surfing and developing an “understanding of how to pick up a good wave”.

There have been raised eyebrows, for example, about the limited reading list. Skinner dismisses such criticisms. “There is only so much literature in the surfing area. But there are a few texts,” he said.

Indeed, one of the “core texts” will be Some Like It Hot: The Beach as a Cultural